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SPRING TOUR Stop 2: Los Angeles

After spending the night in wonderful homestays in San Diego (after the concert our host family took us immediately to In N Out Burger, on which this post will elaborate...), we drove right back to LA for our second concert. Jacob Metrick '13 writes about some things that particularly stood out.

Three
facts:

1. The
Glee Club is freakin’ good at singing. Well, at least according to the
completely unbiased cousins (and parent) of mine, we’ve never sounded better.

We started
out with two of my personal favorite pieces: Sanctus from Martin’s requiem, and
four movements (I, II, V, and VI) from Howells’ requiem. The Sanctus is
extremely powerful in its emotional range: it has sections like the end which
seem to evoke more passion and fire than any other piece, which is contrasted
by the intensity of the quieter sections. I could talk all day about Howells
requiem, but the best thing I could say is that the piece is downright
beautiful. Every moment of it is meaningful and touching.

Later in
the concert, our rendition of Past Life Melodies in particular seemed to
capture the audiences’ attention. It is supposed to evoke Tibetan chant,
Australian Aboriginie songs and Mongolian throat singing, all wrapped up into
one truly unique experience. I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember,
and I’ve never heard anything like that.

One final
note: singing those old-school Yale songs is hella fun and tradition-y.

Four In N Out Burger Double-Doubles pictured in
"Protein Style"

2. In LA,
In N Out Burger is king. In fact, it may be king of other places too. You can’t
beat the value of a Double-Double for $2.79, and the patties are never frozen.
That’s why they aren’t found outside the West Coast; every In N Out location
must be within one day’s drive of its only distribution center in Baldwin Park,
CA. Gotta love the nostalgic red-palm décor and paper hats. I won’t go so far
as to say it’s the best burger.

3. LA is
filled with beautiful. I’ve already mentioned the beautiful singing and
beautiful burgers. But there are also beautiful views, which we got to see on
our drive back from San Diego today, as we skirted the coast north, seeing the
ocean as we overtook hill after hill. Of course, the weather we had was
beautiful. I heard that the weather broke record highs, with temperatures
around 80 degrees. If you live in almost anywhere else, I probably just made
you jealous. Sorry I’m not sorry.

The organ at the First Congregational
Church of Los Angeles

Not least of
all was the beautiful church we got to sing in today. It may have been a little
serpentine in its layout (at times, it seems like I ended up everywhere except
where I wanted to be), but man was this place nice. There were beautiful
stained glass windows all over the place. It was made totally of stone, which
doesn’t mean much until you consider the moody lighting in there (they got it
pretty dark) which kinda made it feel like we were singing in the middle ages,
or in some movie. What about the organ, you ask? That was movie like too, but I’ll
let the picture speak for itself.

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––––

I first encountered this piece when I was 16, as part of a northern
Virginia choral association concert. They mailed me the score (which I still
have) and gave me a few weeks to learn it before having two rehearsals and then
a concert. I still remember trying to learn the music note by note (since I
couldn’t sight read back then) listen to a midi file of the soprano I part on
repeat. So this is how I encountered Vaughan Williams--a piano midi file. My
first impression, especially once I got to “Beat! Beat! Drums!” was….what the
heck is this music. I didn’t really understand the poetry, or the war, or any
of the context surrounding this piece. All I knew was there was something about
a solemn church and a bridegroom and bugles, and something about snorting horses
in Dan…the piece was a mys…